


So Close

by sic_sempervirens



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27922276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sic_sempervirens/pseuds/sic_sempervirens
Summary: There are only two possible outcomes to a battle. Cullen and the Iron Bull know that both are an eventuality. When you live to fight another day, you have to hold tight to the moments you've won -- particularly when it's a close call.
Relationships: The Iron Bull/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 13
Kudos: 34





	So Close

Storm clouds throw an early evening pall over the jagged coast, and weak lantern light fights to penetrate the dimness inside the Iron Bull’s tent. He’s already sharpened his axe. Counted his knives. Paced the tent from end to end several dozen times, feeling every bit his age as the exertions of the day make themselves known. 

In the end, he forces himself to sit, propping his spine upright on the combined bedrolls as he carefully works out his bad knee and his equally testy ankle. _Stretch. Exhale, flex._ Joints crack. His toenails ache, softened from mud soaking his boots and bruised against rocks and fallen timber. A weak ray of heat from the struggling brazier taps his shoulder and it’s more a tease than anything — he knows he’s technically warmer out of his wet clothes than in them, but he shivers anyway and rubs morosely at a blister filling on his heel.

The weighted tent flap shifts abruptly, letting in a freezing burst of salt air and smoke. A glimpse of lit torches. Noise — splitting firewood, hooves and heavy wheels in the mud. A burst of laughter and cursing, the inventive sort that comes in the jittery buzz after fighting and winning. 

Cullen lingers by the entrance as it falls shut behind him, and the silence is so sudden Bull can’t help but chuckle. The Commander’s answering smile is small, slightly pained, but it crinkles the corners of his eyes, and the spell of solitude is broken. Ordinarily, Bull would have readied his best come-on for Cullen to walk in and find him nearly naked, but the anxious churn that’s been congealing in his gut for the past two hours surges up again. “What’s the damage?”

"I'm fine. It’s nothing.”

They were camped in an overlooked crevice in the Jader headlands, where a Venatori splinter had managed to dig in unnoticed for months. While it wasn’t entirely clear whether the provincial militia or the Inquisition’s intelligence had been remiss, Adaar’s maddening sense of responsibility won out and troops were deployed. Cullen had already been afield with a new squadron, and with the Chargers leading reinforcements to take the inland stronghold before dawn, Inquisition forces had reclaimed the cove not long after midday.

A modest victory, all told. A dozen wounded. Five dead.

Nearly six, though.

Bull hadn’t been there. Hadn’t known, until he glimpsed Cullen by the healers’ canopy later, scowling into a flask of elfroot and looking pointedly away from the stern elf deftly passing a luminous wisp over and around his sword arm from fingertips to shoulder.

It didn’t take long to find a few soldiers who, already well into their celebratory cups, eagerly described the encounter with ‘shitloads of gladiators all over the place’ and how, in the midst of the slaughter, Cullen’s blade had bound fast in one of the slave-warrior’s chains as the wretch died on top of him, pinning him to the breakwater beneath the roiling surf.

"It's not fucking nothing, Cullen..."

He makes the face. A tight, indignant working of his jaw, the stern groove appearing between his drawn brows. The fucking face he makes when he’s trying to pretend that it hadn’t come so close, that ignoring what might have come to pass is a mutual agreement and not just his own bad habit. "It's _nothing_ , Bull. Dislocated shoulder, a sprained wrist." 

Bull swallows everything he wants to say and channels it all into the most stubborn frown he can muster, feeling only a little smug when Cullen looks quickly away. 

“Lavellan put everything right. It’s only sore now.” Cullen’s tone is forced, carefully light as he faces the oiled canvas wall and tugs up the hem of his shirt. Bull can see the deep bruises mottling his right forearm and wrist as he undresses. “Anyway, I'm soaked through.”

"I could have gotten you dry things.”

“Nonsense—” Cullen nearly clips the end of Bull’s words. Bull watches his jaw work, the hesitant softening of the lines around his eyes. He often wonders if the man will ever not look just a little like a scolded puppy, and is unaware of his own besotted stare until Cullen gives an exasperated snort and resumes draping his wet shirt over the tent rigging, next to Bull's drying pants. 

He’s been leading patrols as often as possible these days, now that his confinement to an office or war room has been lifted. Moving nonstop just for the sake of it, like a hound kenneled during a storm and desperate for open space to run. Active duty clearly agrees with him — Bull’s eye tracks the hard edges of a body that hasn’t been so lean since they met. More bruises cascade down his shoulder blades and ribs like scattered leaves. Bull thinks suddenly of the rocky shore under Cullen’s back.

He’s left his armor and leathers somewhere, likely in his own tent, still set up for propriety’s sake. Bull imagines whether Cullen will walk across camp himself, partially dressed, to fetch them later, or if he'll let Bull do it for him. Either way, someone will see. They've been working on that. Carefully. Letting people see. “I should’ve stayed closer to you.”

"That's ridiculous.” There’s a nervy tremor to his voice as he steps out of his boots. Now that they’re actually saying it. He’s exhausted. Irascible and bruised. But alive. "You did far more good breaking down their hideout than trailing after me on the beach like a mother duck." 

"Quit giving me crap for being happy you’re not dead, huh?" Bull reaches, lightly tagging the man’s hip with his fingertips. “Come here…” 

“I'm more concerned that I inhaled half the Waking Sea. I'll have walking pneumonia, I know it—”

“Damn it, Cullen—“ Bull makes another grab, this time hooking the waist of Cullen’s woolen leggings with two fingers and tugging. "Would you fucking stop that?” 

He meets the other man’s fretful gaze, and feels something come loose in his chest as Cullen’s face softens after a long moment. “Come here. Please.”

Cullen does.

Bull pushes back on the bedroll as Cullen settles into his lap like a familiar chair, strong thighs spanning his waist. He’s every bit as chilly as he looked and lets Bull wrap him inelegantly in his arms without protest. The vision Bull has been trying to banish kicks suddenly to the surface again, Cullen beneath the waves, breathing in cold blood and colder seawater, mingled salt, indistinguishable. 

If he could gather Cullen into himself he would. Push him deep in, far inside where Bull knows his own blood burns hot, and keep him warm there. 

“Bull...” Cullen's cold nose grazes his throat, wriggling one arm free from where it’s pinned against Bull’s belly. “I can hear you thinking. Stop it.” Cullen’s fingers circle the back of his neck, the base of his skull, pulling his head gently down. The kiss is rough as their cold-chapped lips press and catch...then rest together for a long moment in the warmth of shared breath. "If I’m not allowed, neither are you.” Cullen carefully sets his teeth against Bull’s lower lip, and the sharpness jostles Bull's circling what-ifs into focus again.

"Should've stayed closer," Bull repeats dutifully, skimming fingertips across the well-traveled architecture of Cullen’s broad back, tracing the inscription of scars up the thick columns of muscle along his spine, the twin arcs of his shoulder blades. “I wasn’t there.”

Cullen's hands clasp his neck, thumbs pressing into the softness under his jaw until he can feel his pulse thump firmly against the callused pads. "You’re here now." He presses his cheek to Bull's, and his breath gusts between the underplane of Bull’s horn and the shell of his ear. "I’m here. Me and you."

Bull turns sharply, crushing his mouth to Cullen's stubbled jaw, then to his temple, breathing sweat and seawater from his hair. "Me and you." 

The words give permission.

Cullen's leggings push down easily. Bull skims a hand down the back of them, cupping one buttock, lean muscle flexing in his palm as Cullen sits back into his grip without releasing his mouth. Fuck, it's good to kiss him. It's grounding, at the end of a day like this. Like the first taste of something warm and nourishing on an empty stomach. Like a familiar, worn bedstead creaking under tired bones. Like home. 

Of course, the hand tugging impatiently at his knotted breechcloth is equally welcome. Bull moves to assist, and his hand is slapped away, a tangle of curses and breathy laughter between them until the wrapped material is loosened and Cullen has him in hand. It’s been over a year since they started, and Cullen still handles his cock the same way he kisses — like a teenager who just discovered he was good at it and can’t get enough of practicing — and Bull swells immediately into that strong, sword-trained grip. “I’m glad you saved a little strength, kadan.”

“Not at all...” Cullen’s hand can barely span the qunari’s girth. It’s something that, on another night, Bull would lord over him in the interest of a very different game. “I could go for hours.” He gives a rippling squeeze for emphasis, and Bull’s entire sense of direction shatters as a callused thumb swipes the upwell of precome from his tip. He pushes into Cullen’s hand, or he would if the man wasn’t weighing down his lap. His breath narrows into a plaintive growl, a callow, needy sound like a novice at his first time with a tamassran, shameful except it isn’t. Not with Cullen.

Never with him.

Bull presses his forehead to Cullen’s shoulder, feeling more than hearing the low chuckle that sends a fresh jolt of blood and heat to his groin. He slits his eye open to watch the dark space between them. Cullen’s fingers are stark against the darkness of Bull’s skin as he jacks him harder, faster. The flushed red-violet of his exposed cockhead as Cullen’s own flushed erection slides alongside, nudging insistently for attention. Bull can smell him. Almost taste him, mouth flooded with the urge to throw his lover down and devour him, but Cullen’s rhythm is quickening. Bull’s breath rises in his chest to match, hitching shallow gasps as his belly tightens, that glittering tingle kindling in his toes, the tendons of his thighs —

The grip loosens suddenly. Bull’s circulation returns so quickly his head swims, but not so much he doesn’t notice Cullen shaking out his sore hand with a mumbled curse. Warmer now, the bruises don’t stand out as badly. Apparently they’d both forgotten them.

Bull looks up, incredulous, and quirks an eyebrow. “Hours, huh?”

Cullen’s face is flushed, expression absolutely daring Bull to try and salvage the moment. His mouth twitches. “Shut up.”

He can only manage a moment, maybe two, before he cracks. “You’re so fucking cute —”

“—Maker take you, stop it!” Cullen manages a halfhearted shove before Bull tips him backwards and he clutches for balance, laughing and swearing. Bull hides his grin against the other man’s neck...the skin there is flushed now, warm and smelling thickly, deliciously of himself. Bull breathes him in, paints a wet trail with his open mouth, pressing his tongue to the smaller man’s thudding pulse and listening to his breath come short and fast. “It’s—the thought that counts!”

“And you’re so thoughtful...so good to me, kadan.” Bull wraps an arm around Cullen’s waist as he descends to nuzzle the golden thatch of his chest, and Cullen’s arms entwine with his horns. Spitting into his free palm, Bull grips them both together, a hard and fast rhythm to bring himself back up to speed. 

It doesn’t take long. He pushes up onto his knees, toppling Cullen to his back — arches his spine to rut against Cullen’s hipbone once, twice, shuddering his climax across his own hand, across Cullen’s belly and unflagging erection. It’s hard to keep quiet, his teeth set against Cullen’s collarbone, and a growl claws its way from his throat just the same. Over his head, the susurrus of Cullen’s breath, laced with words the Bull can’t quite make out but sound filthy and desperate just the same, and his hands are still gripping Bull’s horns as tightly as Bull is gripping his still-hard cock.

Bull doesn’t look up. The tent is surrounded by the rest of camp. His oil is...somewhere not easily reached. And he knows Cullen is every bit as exhausted as he is. But he knows if he looks, if he sees the flushed glow of his lover’s skin, the glint of lantern light in his drying curls, his honey-dark eyes, he won’t be able to stop himself. So he keeps his eyes closed, content with what he knows is there, splayed beneath him, dear and beautiful and his.

Cullen gives a sharp, startled cry when Bull licks a long, thick line up the side of his cock, then engulfs him in a single motion. “Maker—nngh...f-fuck—” He breaks off when Bull’s come-slick fingers find his mouth — or he moves to meet them, Bull isn’t sure. His free hand presses one trembling thigh hard to the bedroll, pinning those desperately bucking hips as he hollows his cheeks and draws back slowly off of Cullen’s cock. 

The sound that vibrates around his fingers is low and needy and broken, and Bull’s almost hard again as he takes the other man deep into his throat. A small part of him is sorry not to take his time, to revel in the smell of Cullen, the salt-sweet taste of his skin, to give the throbbing flesh in his mouth all the attention it so richly deserves. But it only takes a minute more.

The debrief is quiet, as always. 

After the flush fades and the cold begins to settle in, Bull finally gets around to pulling Cullen’s pants off completely. He wipes himself clean, then balls up the material and tosses it at Cullen’s chest. “Hours, my ass.”

“Sod off…” Cullen curls onto his side, eyes still closed. He’s smiling. 

Climbing into the bedroll, rather than atop it, is a weary reward, and Bull beats Cullen to it. The topmost blanket is Cullen’s and it still smells of his belongings even though he’s been weeks away from Skyhold...leather soap, dry moss, something else ambery-sweet, and Bull finds himself keenly missing their sturdy bed and four stone walls. 

Until the other man drops in beside him, and none of that exactly matters for the moment because Cullen is nuzzling into his cheek. “Ngh. You need a shave.”

Bull tucks Cullen’s shoulder under his arm, smiles into the dark as a strong leg drapes across his own. “And you need a bath.”

“Already had one today. Don’t fancy another.”

The activity of the camp outside is a blanket of insulating noise and they doze a while. Bull less so, thoughts of mundane necessity needling him to wakefulness. They’ll have to find food at some point. He’ll need to put on wet socks to go get it. Perhaps there’s another brazier in Cullen’s own unused tent as well. Meanwhile, he listens carefully for the slightest hint of a crackle in Cullen’s breathing, the hidden dark water he’d spoken so blithely of before

It’s different, out here. Privacy, safety, comfort. All of it undeniably less than what they share in the fortress they’ve begun to call home. But to know that, no matter what or where, they could carve out a small, perfect piece of _here_ for themselves...in a different life, Bull would have found it terrifying. Perhaps it still is, in a way.

To love him, so fiercely, so frightfully much. And let himself be loved back.

He can’t help himself. Tenderness is a keen hunger in silent moments like this, with Cullen nested tightly against his side, muscles heavy and slack in sleep. Bull might as well be holding his own heart in his arms, a warm, living spark that he knows with utter conviction would kill him if it went out. All he can do is keep it close.

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is. My first completed piece of writing (fannish or otherwise) in literally years. Not to mention, my very first fic offering for this game and this pair that have unexpectedly eaten up my life. Forgive a bit of purple prose and iffy pacing...my writing muscles are sorely out of shape!
> 
> find me on tumblr at sic-sempervirens


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